Tony Blair has agreed with the incoming US defence secretary’s assessment that the war in Iraq is not being won.

Asked by Tory leader David Cameron at prime minister’s questions if he agreed with Robert Gates’ assessment of the war, Mr Blair said: “Of course.”

Mr Blair is now heading to the US for discussions with President Bush about the Iraq Study Group’s report.

Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said the report was “substantial and complex” and in line with UK policy. (more…)

In a surprise twist in the debate over Iraq, Rep. Silvestre Reyes, the soon-to-be chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said he wants to see an increase of 20,000 to 30,000 U.S. troops as part of a stepped up effort to “dismantle the militias.”

The soft-spoken Texas Democrat was an early opponent of the Iraq war and voted against the October 2002 resolution authorizing President Bush to invade that country. That dovish record got prominently cited last week when Speaker designate Nancy Pelosi chose Reyes as the new head of the intelligence panel.

But in an interview with NEWSWEEK on Tuesday, Reyes pointedly distanced himself from many of his Democratic colleagues who have called for fixed timetables for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. Coming on the eve of tomorrow’s recommendations from the bipartisan Baker-Hamilton commission, Reyes’s comments were immediately cited by some Iraq war analysts as fresh evidence that the intense debate over U.S. policy may be more fluid than many have expected.

Warmonger in sheep’s clothing…it’s time to wake up, Democrats. (more…)

U.S. buyout firm Carlyle Group [CYL.UL] said on Wednesday it is keen to invest in more privately owned companies in China in the next three to five years to reap more from that segment of the fast-growing economy.

The Washington-based firm raised a $800 million Asia-wide fund at the end of last year, targeting investments mainly in three countries in the region: South Korea, India and China, said Sean He, a Carlyle managing director in Asia Pacific.

Carlyle has so far invested in total $77.5 million of the fund in three separate projects in China, including a local flooring firm, an outdoor advertising company and a credit service provider, said He, who runs the fund.

All three firms are privately-held Chinese companies, he told a small group of reporters on the sidelines of an investment forum in Shanghai, China’s financial hub. (more…)

Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has become more of a symbol than an active plotter of attacks against the United States, U.S. defense secretary nominee Robert Gates said Tuesday.

“I think that his ability to directly organize and plan the kind of attacks against us that hurt us so badly in September of 2001 is very limited now,” Gates told the Senate Armed Services Committee, which was considering his nomination.

Gates was expected to win U.S. Senate confirmation to replace Donald Rumsfeld as defense secretary.

“I have no doubt that our forces have been trying their best to find Osama bin Laden,” he said. There have been several unconfirmed rumors that the Saudi-born al Qaeda chief was ill or dead.

Asked who he believed was the greater threat to the United States since the Sept. 11 attacks, Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden, Gates replied, “Osama bin Laden.” (more…)

Nasa says it has found “compelling” evidence that liquid water flowed recently on the surface of Mars.

The finding adds further weight to the idea that Mars might harbour the right conditions for life.

The appearance of gullies, revealed in orbital images from a Nasa probe, suggests that water could have flowed on the surface in the last few years.

But some scientists think these fresh gullies could also have been cut by liquid carbon dioxide (CO2).

The latest research emerged when Nasa’s Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft spotted gullies and trenches that scientists believed were geologically young and carved by fast-moving water coursing down cliffs and steep crater walls. (more…)

The Italian security consultant who met Alexander Litvinenko on the day he was believed to have been poisoned said he wanted to warn the ex-spy his life was in danger.

“I received several e-mails from another source he [Litvinenko] introduced to me some years before, saying that him and me were under the special attention of hostile people, so to take care,” said Mario Scaramella.

In an exclusive interview with CNN from his room at University College Hospital in London, Scaramella told of the November 1 meeting he had with Litvinenko.

“The problem for me was these mails were so full of details, so specific that they didn’t seem genuine.” (more…)

COLUMBIA, S.C. — A fed-up mother had her 12-year-old son arrested for allegedly rummaging through his great-grandmother’s things and playing with his Christmas present early.

The mother called police Sunday after learning her son had disobeyed orders and repeatedly taken a Game Boy from its hiding place at his great-grandmother’s house next door and played it. He was arrested on petty larceny charges, taken to the police station in handcuffs and held until his mother picked him up after church.

“My grandmother went out of her way to lay away a toy and paid on this thing for months,” said the boy’s mother, Brandi Ervin. “It was only to teach my son a lesson. He’s been going through life doing things … and getting away with it.”

Police did not release the boy’s name. (more…)

The crowd is getting ugly. Soldiers roll up in a Hummer. Suddenly, the whole right half of your body is screaming in agony. You feel like you’ve been dipped in molten lava. You almost faint from shock and pain, but instead you stumble backwards — and then start running. To your surprise, everyone else is running too. In a few seconds, the street is completely empty.

You’ve just been hit with a new nonlethal weapon that has been certified for use in Iraq — even though critics argue there may be unforeseen effects.

According to documents obtained for Wired News under federal sunshine laws, the Air Force’s Active Denial System, or ADS, has been certified safe after lengthy tests by military scientists in the lab and in war games.

The ADS shoots a beam of millimeters waves, which are longer in wavelength than x-rays but shorter than microwaves — 94 GHz (= 3 mm wavelength) compared to 2.45 GHz (= 12 cm wavelength) in a standard microwave oven. (more…)

A WEHS Channel 60 electrical television transmitter reportedly malfunctioned and caused a fire on the Sears Tower’s 101st floor early Wednesday.
The Chicago Fire Department called a still-and-box alarm at 2:12 a.m. for a “small” fire on the 101st floor of the Sears Tower, 233 S. Wacker Dr., according to Fire Media Affairs spokesman Richard Rosado.

The fire, which was mostly smoke, was contained by 2:30 a.m., Fire Media Affairs Director Larry Langford said.

The fire started in a closet when a 100,000-watt WEHS Channel 60 television transmitter malfunctioned, Langford said. (more…)

The newest spacecraft orbiting Mars has taken pictures of the NASA rover Spirit on the Red Planet’s surface and the two Viking landers that set down in 1976.

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, circling the planet since March, previously used its high-resolution camera to photograph Spirit’s twin, Opportunity, at the edge of a crater.

The images released Monday by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory show Spirit, the landers and associated equipment as pinpoints or blobs against the surface. (more…)

“The act of writing up Articles of Impeachment is not difficult. You just write them on a piece of paper,”
-US Rep. McKinney (D-GA)

Remember what Bill Clinton was impeached for when reading the following ten reasons why George W Bush should be impeached:

North American Union, Amnesty program, Killing sovereignty

The open plan to merge the US with Mexico and Canada and create a Pan American Union has long been a Globalist brainchild but its very real and prescient implementation on behalf of the Council on Foreign Relations has finally been reported on by mainstream news outlets. (more…)

Keith Olbermann discusses airport security measures, and the governments rating system used to identify terrorists.

Unrepentant, arch Neo-Con crafts deceptive Ahmadinejad boogeyman argument to con Americans into First Amendment regulation

Not content with last week’s brazen attack on the First Amendment during a speaking engagement in New Hampshire, Newt Gingrich has swung another right hook in the direction of freedom of speech, by exploiting non-existent statements and Neo-Con propaganda as a reason for shutting down websites and gagging political dissent in America.

Unrepentant, the former Speaker of the House returns again to trash the sanctity of the First Amendment, this time in an article for Neo-Con rag Human Events.

Last week’s diatribe in which Gingrich threatened Americans that if they didn’t curtail websites and restrict free speech they would “lose a city,” provoked a firestorm of reaction from bloggers and pundits alike. (more…)

How the US now uses foreign debt rather than military dictators to control world resources by funding giant projects that are never meant to be repaid, but used as leverage to control govts.

Bush 41 shed some tears for his son Jeb.

Former President George H.W. Bush broke down in tears as he cited his son, Gov. Jeb Bush, as an example of leadership.Bush was addressing lawmakers, his son’s top administrators, and state workers gathered in the House chamber Monday for the last of the governor’s leadership forums. (more…)